


And For Once It's Alright

by CleverlyClearly



Category: Hiveswap, Homestuck
Genre: Awkwardness, F/M, First Time, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, Gentle Sex, Kissing, Nervousness, POV Second Person, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Pale-Red Vacillation, Quadrant Confusion, Quadrant Vacillation, Smut, Vanilla
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 05:55:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13381560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CleverlyClearly/pseuds/CleverlyClearly
Summary: Joey tends to Xefros's wounds, in the physical sense, and they tend to each others' wounds, in the metaphysical sense.





	And For Once It's Alright

**Author's Note:**

> Saw that nobody had written smut for this pairing yet and decided to fill that space.

You are XEFROS TRITOH, and you have injured practically everything on your body there is to injure. It's not so bad, though. Rustbloods like you bend like morning grass and fix up easy.

You don't know how long you've been on the run for- all the running around and strifing and combining everything you could get your claws on with everything else just to see what would happen, it all blended together. It's been a while at least. Some time ago, your moirail disappeared out of his hive, swapped out for an alien girl from a planet where they didn't have lususes or starships or any of the hallmarks of a civilized society. You'd gone on adventures, solved a few puzzles, ran from the drones. Some of it was even kind of fun, but eventually it started to wear on your body. You'd taken a nasty fall and scuffed yourself up, dashed your body against the rocks and raised up bruises across your skin. Thank goodness Dammek gave you all that impact-response training, otherwise you wouldn't have been used to those kinds of injuries. What an awesome guy. Looking after you, of all people.

You tell Joey you're fine, that you'll scar over and patch up, but she doesn't listen. She's on you like an overprotective lusus the moment you get back to the safehouse. "Safehouse", in this case, meant a spare block in the hive of one of Dammek's revolutionary buddies. It's not glamorous, but they have food, and a place to sleep that isn't dirt. Those are hard to come by nowadays.

She bridal carries you (you're always surprised at how strong she really is) into the block, gently laying you onto some kind of substitute canvas-and-metal recuperacoon she calls a "cot". It's cold, and dry, and hardly relieving, but Joey isn't giving you time to think about that. She's rifling through her vet bag and pulling out every sort of medicinal tool and gauze you could imagine. Admittedly you can't imagine that many.

Joey looks concerned as she gives you a once-over. "Xefros," she says, "on a scale of one to ten, can you tell me how bad it hurts right now?"

You have to think about it. "...Four?" You're lowballing it, but you don't want to worry her.

She doesn't look convinced. Gently, she glances the tip of an index finger against your cheek, and draws it down to your mouth. When she pulls back, it's tinged burgundy.

"You were crying." You didn't even notice. It's bad enough that you're wasting Joey's time like this, and now you have the embarrassment of crying like a wiggler because you got bumped around a little bit. It's pathetic, and not in a pitiable way.

"Sorry," you say. Her eyes widen, and she frowns. That's worse than the bruises. You try to smile, let her know it's not so bad. You don't want to see her unhappy on your account. She tells you, no, there's nothing to be sorry for, and it's hard not apologizing for the apologies. 

She adjusts your head on the cot, hand slowly running through your hair. You can't help but feel self-conscious. This kind of physical contact, the little touches. It's pale. You know she's not a troll, that she doesn't have quadrants like you do, she probably doesn't even know what palerom is. You can't blame her for anything. But you can't help but feel an unease in your gut. It's too close to a shoosh-pap, you really shouldn't be doing this with anyone besides your moirail. Of course, you never did this kind of thing with your moirail in the first place, but that's beside the point. There was no time, there were stratagems to plan, there were subversive lyrics to record. Really, you've had a paucity of positive physical contact with anyone who wasn't your lusus. It's undiscovered country.

From this new angle, you've got a perfect view of Joey's face. There's something surreal about it, seeing something so similar and so different to the trolls you've known all your life. You'd gotten used to it, practically forgotten about it - you bled the same color, what's the difference? - but she is there now, and all you can think about is the differences. The outsize eyes with the white sclera, not like your beady yellows. The pale skin, practically snowy, contrasted against your ash gray. Everything about her is soft - the plush body without visible muscle, the herbivorous teeth and slight canines, the short pinkish nails that were no good as claws. You can see the glint off her eyes in the dim light of the block, just enough light to really take her in, the whole picture.

She is really, strikingly, beautiful.

Oh no.

It's not right. It's perverted, even. To entertain those thoughts with a girl, your friend who hardly knew what quadrants were, an alien who is brazenly acting pale towards you right this second because she doesn't know any better, even though you already have Dammek- and now, what, you're feeling flushed? You want so badly to apologize, but you just can't. It would make everything so much worse.

"Sopor," she says. "It'll ease the pain, right? I can apply it for you. Can you lift your arms enough to remove your shirt?"

You're glad to have something to do, to keep you from drifting into introspection. You try to raise them, you really try, but suddenly there's a sharp jab through your shoulders and you gasp without thinking and you just can't do it.

"Oh. Oh, Xefros, I'm sorry. You're going to be alright."

She's apologizing to you. She's actually apologizing to you. You've been nothing but a burden the whole time, and now that you've gotten injured, proven yourself to be a liability again, she's apologizing to you. Putting everyone before herself. She said before that that was what it meant to work in medicine, to be selfless, nurse others to health and tell them it's alright. It's still hard to grasp. Most Traumaturgists you've gotten checkups from also gave haircuts, and used the same tools for both jobs. Not for her. Everything on her planet is cuddlier, all the edges are blunted. Sounds kind of nice, to be honest.

She's got something in her hand, something metal, gleaming. You can't see and you don't want to crane your neck. "You have a spare shirt, right Xefros?"

You've got a change of clothes in your sylladex, you tell her.

"Okay. I'm going to remove this, so that I can get a closer look. Is that alright?"

It's always alright. You say it's always alright. You're starting to think you'd let her do anything, and you wouldn't mind at all.

She sets her hands at the hem of the shirt and works her way up to the neck to the sound of snips (scissors, that's what she has). Then she starts on the sleeves. The metal ghosts against your skin and you try to keep yourself from shivering. She senses your discomfort, she just knows somehow, and she slips a hand down to squeeze yours, fingers entwining. You don't even have to ask, not that you ever would.

She strips you of the scraps and leaves you bare-chested. She spends a few moments tracing along the lines of your body, and there is an uncomfortable second where you aren't sure whether this is for your benefit or maybe she's just, you know, touching.

Her hand moves away from yours, and you twitch involuntarily (no, no, come back), but she's back again before you know it. She just reached down to get the sopor packets. Alright, that's good. She tears one open and examines the contents, a stack of green-tinged cloths.

"They're like wet wipes," she observes. You don't know what wet wipes are, but you figure you should encourage her.

"Yeah," you say, "you're ex-actly right."

"Ex-actly right," she murmurs, copying your emphasis on the X. If you weren't shivering before, you are now. You know she doesn't understand, you know it's not her fault. But you can't just copy quirks like that. It's too intimate. Only quadrant-mates get to do that. She shouldn't be doing that.

You want her to do it again. 

She places the sopor cloth on your abdomen, and the tension in your muscles fades. Delicately, as if you would crack at the slightest pressure, she runs the rag over your stomach, and up to your chest. Everywhere she goes, the pain dissipates, the weight is lifted. She dabs around your neck, and then tilts you up to work at your back. She whispers assurances to you, tells you how great you're doing, how good you'll feel when it's all over. It's so soothing you can hardly stand it.

She runs over the grubscars, the thin marks from your infant insectoid legs, and you make a noise. You can't help it. Your body responds to the feel of her hands and you close your eyes and this throaty warble bubbles up. You are purring, oh fuck, you are actually purring in front of her, and it's humiliating and it's horrible, it's mollifying and wonderful. You don't know how to think, thinking's too stressful right now. You just let it happen and wonder if she's catching on. She's still caressing you, running the sopor cloth along every individual vertebrae in your spine, she isn't disgusted with you. She's still oblivious. That, or she doesn't mind, maybe- no, no, you can't think like that. You can't get your hopes up like that. They're bad hopes anyway, wrong ones. You're practically taking advantage of her, letting her do this when she doesn't understand, doesn't reciprocate, couldn't.

You stopped hurting at some point, the pain a dull memory now. You don't know how much of that is from the sopor or from Joey's touch.

She's looking at you now. It's a weird look, a hard to read one. She's chewing her lip, slightly, and furrowing her brow as if she's ruminating on how exactly she wants to word what she's about to say.

"You've been working hard," she says, at last, and touches your bicep with the tips of her nails. Oh. This isn't medical. She's touching you just to touch you. 'You're working hard', she says, what is that? Is she saying, is she talking about your muscles? Is she saying that she likes them, in some roundabout way, that she likes your body? It's just from pushball, it's not a big deal, she's stronger anyway. You really want to say it's nothing, you want to downplay it, but the words won't come. 

"Thanks," you say, instead. "You've been working hard too." She smiles at you and you're pretty sure your bloodpusher is about to go into cardiac arrest.

She tosses aside the used rags and takes off her coat (you understand, it's getting really hot in here all of a sudden). You've never seen her take it off before. It's not like she's naked or anything (don't think about that), she's only revealing her bare arms, but she seemed so much bigger in the bulky overcoat, and so much smaller without it. She looks exposed.

There's a moment where she's just wringing her hands, and you sit up and wait for her to tell you what to do.

"Now," she says. "I think we should continue with. Um."

She makes vague gestures at the lower half of your body. She's going to apply it to your lower body now.

Oh. Oh no. Now this is weird.

"I just." Her cheeks light up, red, same color as yours. "I understand if you don't want me to. I don't want to do anything you'd be uncomfortable with."

She's always thinking about you. Are you uncomfortable? Maybe a little. Are you scared? Yes, holy shit. Do you want this to happen?

"I-I'm fine with it if you're fine with it," you say, which is understating it.

"No, it's alright, I actually-" She clams up, her face reddens further. "Do you need me to... take them off?"

You can do it yourself. You don't want to do it yourself.

"If, if you want, you can." How did this get so intense all of a sudden? It's probably your fault.

She nods, and crouches down to get closer to you. She slips off the shoes, then the socks, one neatly after the other. Then she goes upward, hands running up the outside of your legs and over your thighs. She delicately undoes the button on your pants, and the fingers brush your skin, and you can feel her breath on you, and you have to think about your lusus and pushball injuries and anything other than Joey just to divert your bloodflow away from anywhere embarrassing.

"Shh," she says, and slowly removes them. Her knuckles press against your scrawny ass through the fabric of your underwear, and trace down your hips all the way to your knees. With a few firm tugs, they're off entirely, and you're sitting there practically nude. Somehow, you don't feel cold.

Joey takes another sopor cloth, more unsteadily this time, and rubs it into your quadriceps. You trill lightly as she outlines your musculature, covering every exposed inch of you, from the crook of your knee to the soles of your feet. It's addictive to you. You're starting to doubt whether it's right to feel this good, but then the ache fades away and it overwhelms you and the doubt leaves.

She's done, now, with the sopor. There's an odd combination of relaxation and anxiety brewing in your gut, and the pain has nearly completely left you. She still holds you, one hand rubbing against your ribs, another thumbing through your wild hair.

"You did great," she says, sweet as sugar. "You did so well." She's still looking a little red. If anything, the blush has gotten darker. Her hands knead your scalp, and untangle your hair, and it feels so good just to be touched, by somebody, anybody, that-

oh FUCK-

She's touching your horn root. Not just touching it, massaging it. You moan, and you regret it instantly because she pulls her hands away and you can see the realization on her face and she looks so nervous and surprised she might throw up. No, no, you fucked it up, you ruined it Xefros, now she's gonna fucking hate you.

She just looks at you, and doesn't speak, and every second of silence is devouring you.

"Xefros," she says, hoarsely. "Have I been... making... you...?" She can't finish the words. You nod. Your throat is so dry you couldn't respond if you wanted to.

Her eyes are drilling holes into you. Your lungs are vise-tight and breath is not coming. She inhales, she is about to say something, she has chosen the words that are going to destroy you. Every word is so weighty she can hardly stand to say them.

"Would. You like. Me to. Keep. Going."

You're going to die. You're going to die right now on this bed. You're worried you actually are going to puke, or cry, or any other response to how lightheaded and oxygen-starved you feel. You can breathe now, you can swallow now, but it's so heavy you might hyperventilate. She hesitantly reaches out, and you know that you can tell her to stop at any time, that you could let it go and she would never talk about it again, just for your sake. But you let her do it. You let her touch you again, and caress your horns again, and you can't take this anymore.

"Yuh, yes, yesss" you choke out, "just, do, that."

She moves closer to you, nuzzling her head against your temples, and you can't see her but you don't need to, you've memorized every inch of her face. Her hands roam down to your cheeks, to your throat, to your shoulders, learning your topography, teaching your layout to her fingers. She grips your arms firmly and presses kisses to your forehead, just the barest touches but they feel like gunshots.

"Please," you beg, "please, let me see you," and she lets you, she pulls down so that you can look her in the eyes and you wrap your arms around her body and taste her lips and chin and cheeks and have your selfish fill of her. You hug her so tightly you're afraid she's going to shatter, and then she returns it, she holds you just as firmly and she won't let you go, she'd never let you go. She's sticky sweet, some strange flavor that you've never considered before but you can't get enough of now. Her tongue pricks on your teeth, and the copper taste mixes in, and the pangs in your stomach are going to kill you if you don't drain every bit of her vitality. Her hands, the warm hands you love, are gripping your horns like handles and pulling you closer to her. You groan into her mouth and she responds with the softest squeak.

She leaves you for just a second, rubbing your collarbones, assuring you with her eyes that she'll come back to you.

"It isn't fair," she says, "that you're like this and I'm still decent."

She fumbles with her shirt, clumsily pulling it up over her head, revealing the marble skin, some strange indentation on her stomach that you don't recognize, some thin cloth bindings around her thoracic cellulite. She didn't ask whether you wanted to take it off for her, but you're glad she didn't, because you're already about to pass out and you don't need more stress. She slips off her shoes and bends down to wriggle out of her skirt, and your temperature shoots up. The whorls in her black hair, the subtle swivel of her hips, the arch of her calves, all burns into your memory.

"Please look," she says, voice wavering, "I couldn't take it if you didn't look." You look. You can't stop looking.

Color has flushed her ivory. Only a small bit of cotton white is left to cover her, and you can see every curve and ridge and angle on her body. She hugs her midsection self-consciously and you see the gentle rise and fall of her breasts with her breathing. The catch of the light on her skin. The delicate fingers you'd like to kiss. The architecture of her body.

She is divine. She is seraphic. There is no comparison, not on Alternia, not anywhere. She focuses on you, really analyzes you, trying to know every part of you, and she realizes that you are looking at her looking, and she speaks.

"Do I... look good?" She stares at the floor, and shuffles her feet.

That was it. She was as nervous as you. She was as unsure as you. She wanted validation as much as you. She wanted someone to tell her that she was fine, that she was beautiful, as much as you. She was shy because of you. She was this way because of YOU. Someone you respect, someone you admire, this graceful beautiful alien who can wreck an imperial drone with a flashlight and pointe shoes, likes you. No, more than that. She wants to pail with you. As if you are worthy of anything with her.

But, maybe.

If she feels that way, about you.

Maybe she is right.

You're so dizzy. Your breath is catching in your throat, and it almost hurts, but it's fine. As long as she's there, it's fine. It feels good. It feels so good.

"You're," you stutter, you shake, "beautiful, the most, the greatest beautiful, I need, please, over here, you have to, I want."

She squeezes her thighs together, and says "You are," and it looks like she wants to match you and top you and copy your praise but she just can't put it into words right now, she just says "You too." You too. You don't believe that, that your shitty gutterblood body is worth anything, but you know she means it, know she's sincere, and you can't get around the dissonance.

She gets on the cot, and it's hardly a proper place for this but that doesn't matter as long as she's there with you, and she sort of straddles you and presses her body heat into you and she guides your hands behind her back. The latch is hard to undo and your nails are sharp but you don't scratch her at all, not even slightly, and the fabric slips off and there is even more of her to admire. She holds your hand in hers and places it on a breast and you don't know what to do, you just kind of palm it, and you suspect that you're doing it wrong but her breathing gets a bit shallower and it sounds good to you so you keep at it.

"I want to, know you more," she says, with her mouth against your ear, "Anything you don't want, I won't do. But I think I really need you, Xefros."

The words, and the feel of her lips on your ear, on your collarbone, awkwardly scavenging for purchase just to see if it'd feel good, gives you a foreign confidence. Enough to help you really say it, instead of blubbering out a vomit of nonsense language.

"Everything," you say back, "I, I need you too."

She's so relieved she looks like she's going to cry. You're glad it isn't just you.

You can't strip quickly enough. She shifts her weight and helps you slide your boxers down and off your feet and finally she can really see you. You're worried that maybe the anatomy isn't compatible, maybe she's got something strange and alien and she's going to think that you're a freak, but she doesn't say anything, she just takes you in, and you still can hardly comprehend that she is looking at you the way you look at her.

"Am I good enough?", you ask, and you are guilty for asking, for needing this validation when she is already giving everything to you. She puts her hands on you, exactly where you want, clumsy, feeling, and you inhale sharply.

"Yes." She kisses up your neck and along your jaw, and tangles her fingers into your hair, and rubs the thin cotton fabric against you. "You're good. You're ex-cellent." Her tongue lingers on the X, and she hitches against you in just the right way, and you're going to lose your shit. Your hands trace down and find the last vestiges of fabric, and you practically tear it off, you flail and squeeze at everything you can because you're desperate for the feeling of her in your palms. She takes your hands and moves them to her hips, and up to her stomach, and around to her back, and your fingers run over everywhere, and she grinds your sex against her stomach.

You want to see her, you're greedy and you want to drink in every part of her, and she shifts just for you so you can get a better look and it is lovely and every part of her is lovely and you just want it you want her and you need her to let you have it. She lets you.

It's hard to get it in because she's so wet and you're shaking so hard, you both are, you're clumsy and you aren't good with a goddess like her, but she helps you, she guides you down and you press against her. You slip in so suddenly you aren't expecting it and you are shuddering and groaning but she tells you it's okay it's alright she's there for you and she isn't going to let you break not even a little bit, she holds your hand and doesn't let go. You go in a little further and a little further and she makes these strange melodic noises and you copy her but she shuts you up, she forces her mouth against yours and you're drowning in her tenderness. You don't even realize how hungry you are, you didn't even realize how badly you were flushed for her, how badly you wanted her, but you want it so bad oh God you want it so bad. You're fully enveloped as far as you can go and she is pressing in all around you and you can feel every breath and every heartbeat.

You touch your forehead to hers and it is as if you are blending into her, you have reached this understanding that is beyond your meager words and you can only tell it in the way you move your hips and the way her eyes shine in the lowlight. She pulls away, and you whine because of your avarice, because you are desperate for her and you do not want to leave her but she grinds back into you and you cry out. Your head tilts and you bare your throat to her and she takes it and you feel her teeth pressing into your neck but you don't care. It doesn't hurt, it never hurts, nothing about her hurts it's all ambrosia it's liquid gold to you.

You spasm, and you thrust back into her, and she takes you in, and you're being so loud you can almost be heard over her but it doesn't matter. She's holding onto you, she's centering you, as long as she's there you are safe, it's okay to feel this good, it's okay to be happy like this. She hugs you, and every time you take her she tells you how beautiful you are how strong you are, she tells you you're excellent, you're exquisite, she clicks her teeth and drawls out the X in the husky throaty voice that's short of breath, and you tell her right back, you tell her she is perfection, she is a diamond, but there aren't enough words. You can't put any of it into words, you just feel her and devour her warmth and that's all she needs to hear, that's all you need and you need so much of it. You're so possessive, you're so covetous, you are so aware of the empty space within you and you let her fill you up with her praise and her love.

You let it pour into you, and she slows down and she touches her nose to you and looks right into your eyes and tells you it's okay, you've done a good job, it's time now, and finally finally FINALLY you don't even move you just bury your face in her chest and listen to the blood running through her veins, and you moan out and she works herself against you until she's had it all and she cries out too and then you are both lying there enveloped in contentment. At last.

You look up at her, you look up at Joey, your friend, your love, the empress in your eyes, and you are buzzing with so many questions. You feel pale, you feel flushed, you don't know if she'll really get the quadrants, you don't know if you even get them yourself, you want to know whether it was a one-time thing, you want to know how she feels, you want to tell her how good she is, you want to meditate on your own self-doubts. You're freaking out because you didn't even use a pail and now the red is everywhere, it looks like a fucking crime scene, you need to know everything's alright, you need the assurance from her.

She is already asleep.

You're drained. You're tired. You're smiling. You're happy. Things can work out alright for you, sometimes.

You are XEFROS TRITOH and her arms around you is all the assurance you need.


End file.
